


Home of the Brave, Land of the Free

by Ger0nim0



Series: The Anomaly Man Chronicles [1]
Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: California, Characters to add eventually, Female US Marine, Gen, Going around the USA, Multi, San Francisco Bay Area, Taking place in a State I don't remember visiting, USA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ger0nim0/pseuds/Ger0nim0
Summary: One of the worst things that could happen in 2012 would be the end of the world. But as it turns out, you'll have to deal with many unknown variables that enter our world.For Sarah Nolan, who lost her long-time friend, she was having the worst year of her life. Of course, she didn't know which was THE worst. The heat wave, or the invasion of machine lifeforms.
Relationships: 2B/9S (NieR: Automata)
Series: The Anomaly Man Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532849
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> PILOT. That's all until then. Please be patient.
> 
> Also, music is not MINE!

February 12, 2013

Los Angeles, California

Downtown LA

11:00 AM

Traffic was the worst thing to get trapped in. Especially if you weren’t from LA. Sarah Nolan was amongst the many tourists trying to exit the highway, no matter how congested it was. The reason why she was in downtown LA was because she was visiting a friend. Ever since the disappearance of her retired best friend, Gerome, her life took a plunge into the toilet. She could not concentrate on _anything_. Her superiors in the Marines even took note of it and suggested to the irritable woman that she take a “vacation” from the force and sort her life through.

To curb any bordom, Sarah turned on the radio for music. But near at the end of her favorite song, the radio replaced the music with static. Annoyed, she tapped on the stereo, but did not make the situation any better. Changing stations didn’t work either, for they all blew static out of the speakers. Giving up, she turned off the radio and continued driving slowly towards the closest exit.

_VRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmm..._

“What the hell?” Sarah grunted, trying to get her car started. “Agh... Piece of crap! Turn on, damn it!” She stopped for a while to realize that, strangely, everyone was getting out of their cars because they were having the same problem. And to top it all off, there was the heat wave that had spread throughout California. So in temperatures of over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, it was a nightmare in broad daylight. “Ugh… I hate this heat. This is why I prefer to live in Montana.”

After a minute or so, all the cars started up by themselves. Clearly, something odd was going on. But deciding that it was better to move on, they went back into their cars and drove on. It took Sarah nearly an hour and twenty minutes more to reach her destination in the suburbs.

VVVVVVV

San Francisco, California

Same time

The SFPD, both regular officers and SWAT, as well as many FBI agents, were at the scene at the North Beach area. Out over the San Francisco Bay, many boats were floating above the water, coming together to make a ball-shape. For a few months since December of 2012, many strange things began to happen, from birds covering the sky in a 5-mile radius to animals staring at a random direction for ten minutes or longer. It was too surreal for anyone present, including the citizens of San Francisco. There had been many strange happenings that occurred around the world in 2012, but this took the cake. There was nothing that science could explain. The phenomenon, according to various witnesses to it, had formed earlier that morning; later, it caused a brief surge that acted as an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. No one has been able to approach the phenomenon without having their boat float towards it.

Nothing had happened for a while. But a voice could be heard through anything that had a speaker.

**_“DIE. EVERYTHING MUST DIE.”_ **

At first, no one not even the authorities, knew what was going on. Then the ball made of boats fell apart and revealed a white-haired man wearing only pants. His entire body was black and his eyes were red.

**_“DIE!”_ **

Vvvvvvvv

February 16, 2013

9:00 PM

Military convoy en route to San Francisco

Sarah Nolan was called in by her superiors to gear up when an unknown phenomenon occurred at the San Francisco Bay. Before the radio went dark, various messages from the National Guard and law enforcements were shouting about a black-skinned man in pants. This man had killed anything that moved within his sights. No one has been able to land a shot at him, and no one knew where he came from. All the Marines had been told by an Army man, who claimed to have survived a couple battles against the man with his squad, that the man was a shoot-to-kill target and that he must be destroyed immediately. That was two days ago. And during that time, the city was being evacuated.

VVVVV

San Francisco

10:00 PM

She was freaking hot. And she was scared. She was not supposed to be scared of anything. But that man, who called himself Eve, had killed everyone in her team, including the Army soldier that came along. And Eve didn’t even have to touch them. What he did was create monstrous machines out of cars and various items within his vicinity and sent them to her team. The other teams did not have any better chances against them either. Their current small-arms were more like peashooters against the tougher enemies. And no matter how many explosives they used, more of the machines kept coming like a flood. Said flood left her with little ammo, along with whatever she could grab to salvage her ammo.

Sarah hid herself in a house somewhere, locking all doors and locking and covering up all the windows with whatever she could use. She had settled down on a couch with her M4A1 carbine to the side. In front of her was a large steaming bowl of instant noodles with two eggs and two hotdogs chopped up to pieces. Not an ideal meal, but she had to eat something in order to keep her strength. She ate quickly and quiet, then, when she was done, put a blanket over her as she lied down on the couch with the carbine in her hands. It was long before she finally fell asleep. She never noticed a presence of a short boy standing at the stairway looking at her.

VVVVV

February 17, 2013

9:55 AM

She woke up to a thump that came from upstairs.

“Hello?” Sarah called out. “Is anyone here?” She got up from the bed, aiming her M4A1 at the stairs. She slowly crept up the steps making sure her footsteps were silent. When she got to the second floor, there were five doors. She made a sweeping motion to check surroundings with her carbine before she heard the shuffling of feet. It came from above her. The door to the attic was the only door closed, so she crept toward it.

“I’m coming in,” she said, letting them know. “If you are friendly, don’t attack me.”

Sarah opened the door and walked up with her carbine up, ready to shoot if they turned out to be machines. But when she got in to the attic, she was caught off guard by a blade to her neck.

“Stop right there.” A boy’s teenage voice softly vibrated the female Marine’s eardrums. She turned her head to her right to see a young man wearing black clothing that would have had her friend, Geronimo, fanboy over. She could see now, “Oh my god! You look so awesome! A short boy warrior in black using a katana! Squee, squee!”

The boy was short and had white hair. He wore shorts, a jacket, boots, a choker, and even a blindfold. How he was able to see her through that she would never know. Still, with the boy pointing his black and gold sword to her neck, it had put the Marine in a tricky situation. For all she knew, he was a delusional teenager who believed he was some kind of warrior in a fantasy-themed anime. And he hid away from the carnage that was happening outside of the house.

“L-Look, kid,” Sarah spoke finally, “I’m not here to hurt you. I am with—”

“Put down your weapons.”

“Huh?” She was left flabbergasted. Never in her life had someone like him demanded her to put her weapons on the floor.

“Put down your weapons. Slowly.”

Realizing that the boy was not going to lower his sword anytime soon, the female Marine complied. With her M4A1, M9 Beretta and combat knife on the floor, a machine suddenly floated by from behind her and confiscated them. The boy looked (was he looking?) at Sarah in the eyes and asked, “What model are you?”

“E-Excuse me?” That came out of nowhere.

“Why are you wearing _that_?” he continued, gesturing to her combat utility uniform and tactical vest. “And are you infected?”

VVVVV

12:00 PM

A malicious computer virus was released to the world and no one knew how to break it. All they knew was that most of the infected cars and electronics do not work properly and that it originated in San Francisco.

VVVVV

February 27, 2013

3:25 PM

A military drone passes over the Golden Gate Bridge. It took a few pictures of a large banner hanging on the bridge. It reads, “GLORY TO MANKIND.”

VVVVVVV

"War Pigs/Luke's Wall" by Black Sabbath

Play?

[Humans and Androids vs Machines](https://youtu.be/qgz__d0VC5k)


	2. Chapter 2

San Francisco, California

February 17, 2013

10:05 AM

The situation was precarious, to say the least. The sword that the short, white-haired boy carried was, in fact, real. One wrong move and she’ll be sliced.

“If you are not going to answer, then I will rip it out of you,” the boy stated. Sarah stood still, unsure on what to do. She could then see the confusion spread across his face. “What is this? This is information I’ve never seen before. Wait, what is this?” He muttered to himself for three minutes before going silent. Sarah took it as an opportunity to move toward the stairs. She felt a blade on the back of her neck.

“If you move away from me one more time…” the boy trailed off when he heard a vibrating noise coming from the female Marine. “What else do you have on you?”

Becoming nervous from the steel in his voice, Sarah removed her radio and her rugged smartphone. Her phone was receiving a call from her superiors.

“Give them to me.” She handed them over to him, albeit reluctantly. As she did, the phone answered by itself and was immediately set on speaker mode. At first the caller didn’t say anything, but then came a gruff voice.

“To whom am I speaking to? Clearly, you are not one of my Marines.” General Walton, an old man with the energy of someone in his 20s. He was humorous, when happy, and calm, when angry. He was feeling the latter right now.

“So your superior wants to talk to me,” The boy calmly stated.

“What the hell? A kid?” General Walton was as confused as Sarah was. Despite that, he pushed through his confusion to ask, “Never mind. Young man, where did you get this phone?”

“Phone? Is that what this is called?” Apparently, it was the first time that the boy has ever heard of, or even held, a phone. “No, that can wait. To answer your question, I have retrieved this device from one of your models—”

“Models? You’re calling us models as if we’re machines, son?”

_No! Don’t say that!_ But it was already too late and the boy tensed up.

“What did you say?” There was silence in the attic before Sarah spoke up to hopefully salvage the situation.

“What the general is saying,” she explained, “is that we are not your enemies. We are not robots of any form. We’re human.”

That got the boy to freeze as he slowly lowered his sword. He looked to be in shock, if his body language were anything to go by. “No,” he stammered, “no. No. That’s not true. The humans are up in the Moon…”

_The Moon, huh?_ Sarah took note of it before asking him something that had bothered her for the last few minutes. “If …”

VVVVVV

One long awkward conversation later

Sarah was not sure if the silence was good or not. Her superior had hung up a while ago and the boy, who calls himself 9S, just sat on a wooden table behind.

“Um,” 9S finally broke the silence after five minutes of it, “if you are humans, what is the current year right now?”

It took some time to convince him that she and her superior, and everyone else outside of the house they were in, were all human. It seemed that he took it rather poorly (he seemed embarrassed), but eventually, he calmed down and accepted his new reality. Deciding that to the kid, who she now knew was actually an android, needed to know about his current situation, she told him.

“The current date,” she said, “is February 17, 2013.”

“Huh,” he muttered. Near the end of their conversation, he had told the female Marine, and General Walton, that he was an android from Earth over 9,932 years from now. In the future, Earth was taken over by alien machines, known as machine lifeforms, and that humans had taken refuge on the Moon. The humans later created androids to fight the machines for them. A certain group of military androids, known as YorHa, were given that task of fighting the machines and taking back what was left of Earth. The only problem was that the war has been stagnating as of late. Then came two new machines named Adam and Eve. There wasn’t enough information about them, but the one thing they have in common was that they both looked humanoid, like the androids. At some point, 2B, a partner of 9S, killed Adam. That left Eve to go insane with rage and be afflicted with an advanced computer malware called the Logic Virus. And then a phenomenon that enabled “trans-dimensional travel”, which led up to the current situation.

“And you say that Eve is currently infected with the Logic Virus?” Sarah finally asked. “That he is why we aren’t able to touch him?”

“Well, even if he wasn’t infected,” 9S responded, “you humans wouldn’t have been able to touch him, regardless of your current firepower.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

Grrrroooowwwwl…

Sarah held her belly in embarrassment. She hadn’t eaten since she woke up. She went downstairs after stating that she needed to eat. But she was met with another unexpected face. Another android came out of a room, this one being female. Like 9S, she had white hair. It was stylized into a bob and she had a black hairband. Her decorated black dress showed a little cleavage and her skirt was split to the right, showing off more of her leg. It was also possible that the split skirt was to increase mobility during combat. Her black high-heeled boots reached up to her thighs. She wore black and white gloves that also covered part of her arm. Like 9S, she wore a black blindfold.

The little android explained that they weren’t really blindfolds, but visors that help them with combat assessments, other than the floating “Pods”, as he called them. It still threw off the female Marine, like why have visors that look like blindfolds? It didn’t make any sense.

“Hello?” Sarah called out.

SHING!

The female android summoned a katana and pointed it at the source of her voice, only to be off by six inches her left and swing her sword at a wall. Sarah had noticed the way the android tilted her head. She was actually blind.

“Who’s there?” Her voice was low and cold, which hid a layer of violence. It sent slight shivers down the Marine’s spine.

“W-Whoa, wait!” 9S suddenly came down from the attic with his hands on the other android’s sword arm. “2B, put your sword down. There’s no danger right now.”

_That’s 2B?!_ Sarah screamed internally. _I thought she’d be nice!_

“9S,” the android, 2B, softened her voice at the sound of her partner. Then it became hard again. “Who else is here with us?”

The tension was getting higher for every second there was silence. Then the little android saved her bacon. “2B, meet Sarah Nolan,” he said, gesturing to the human, even though the combat android was blind. “Sarah, meet No. 2 Type B, AKA 2B.”

“H-Hi,” Sarah waved at the blind android.

The sound of a car alarm blared outside of the house. All three immediately went tense as Sarah and 2B, with the help of 9S, crept carefully toward a drawn bedroom window. Sarah had almost forgotten something. “Kid, where are my weapons?”

“Oh s-sorry!” he stuttered in a hushed voice. He looked back and said, “Pod, bring the weapons.”

The same floating machine came in, with the firearms and knife, as silent as a whisper, and handed them back to the female Marine. “Thank you,” she whispered while doing an ammo count. After doing so, she crept closer to the drawn window and moved the curtain a little to peek outside. By then, the car alarm had stopped. The streets looked clear, however, the silence was deafening. She could not find anything, and so she released the curtain, letting it cover the window completely once more.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” she said a low, quiet voice. “Get ready.”

CRASH! Something was breaking in to the house at the bottom floor. Both 9S and Sarah quietly guided 2B into a closet and hid her there, telling her only to attack if found. Both 9S and Sarah hid under a bed as the footsteps of a person got closer.

“Kill. Kill. Kill.” They could hear a male voice, which sounded so distorted, like a broken audio clip. Someone entered the room. They could see bloody boots shuffle in to the room. “Come out, come out, little pigs.”

The unknown man shuffled around for a few tense minutes, listening for any little sound of a survivor before leaving. Hearing the footsteps going downstairs, Sarah slowly crawled out of the bed, taking out a suppressor, an item amongst many she managed to scavenge from the bodies of dead soldiers. Screwing it on to the muzzle of her M4A1 carbine, she crept to the stairs with her carbine aimed toward it. Memories of her dead comrades flashed through her eyes, reminding her of the dangers she had to face yesterday.

“Miss. Miss!” hissed 9S, guiding the blind battle android along. “Don’t just leave right away! We don’t know what we’re dealing with!” He was met with a finger lifted to the air.

“Shh.”

Sarah slowly crept down the stairs, her carbine on “Auto.” For all she knew, the bodies of her comrades were being used for something sinister.

SHING!

RAPID FIRE!

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK!

The female Marine froze in her tracks. She heard that sound before. That was the sound of a blade running through a body. Gaining the courage to move again, she went down the stairs.

“Miss, stop! Miss!”

Sarah aimed her M4A1 at a female individual with long white hair and ice blue eyes. She was 5’6” (including heels) and wore a red Abercrombie & Fitch-brand hoodie over her worn out outfit, which only covered the vital areas while showing more skin and synthetic surfaces on her body. In her hand was a futuristic-looking sword. Said sword had penetrated through the body of a soldier, who looked like he had a few machine parts merged into his body.

_Another android?_ Sarah thought as she lowered her carbine at the sight of the stranger. “Are you friendly?”

The new android just stared at her before responding with her sword, sliding out of the body, raised at her, “Are you _human_?”

The only human the house hesitated before answering, “Y-Yes, I am.”

9S finally appeared behind Sarah and aimed his own sword at the android. “You.” But before he could do anything…

“Mommy, is it safe here?” came a small child’s voice. Sarah turned her head to the source, her eyes widening as she looked at a little girl, who couldn’t be older than six years old. Her brown shoulder-length hair was curly and unruly. Her eyes were a green color. She wore a pink _Dora the Explorer_ T-shirt and khaki shorts. She carried a _My Little Pony_ -themed backpack, which featured the characters Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack.

The first thing in the Marine’s mind was wondering where the girl’s family was. Then she thought about how and why the girl was not out of San Francisco. But she never had the time to think anymore as a dirty homeless man in a ragged T-shirt and sweatpants peeked through the smashed window saying, “I found the car for these keys.” He waves the car keys in the air. “It’s actually a truck.”

“Good, because we’re bringing more,” said the android stranger as she let the sword dissipate into thin air and walked out of the house, holding on to the little girl’s hand. Sarah wasn’t sure of what to think of that. She looked at 9S and it looked like he didn’t know what to think either.

“So, 9S,” Sarah began slowly, “should we follow this lady?”

“What? Are you crazy?” he exclaimed. “You have NO idea what she has done against YorHa. She’s a traitor to our organization, against our cause—”

“Well,” the female Marine points a finger to the destroyed window, “she has friends and has a truck to ride in. I’ll put my bet on her that she’ll lead us to freedom from this godforsaken city.”

Sarah then followed the stranger, hobo and child, leaving behind a confused and blind battle android and an equally confused Scanner android.

“9S,” 2B called softly from upstairs, “was that Number 2?”

“Yeah…” he answered, going back up to guide her down to get her outside. “And also, the foolish human soldier going with her.”

“What?! Does she have a death wish?”

“Look at it this way,” he held her hand and tugged her along the steps, “we need to leave the city. However, we don’t even know where we are and how to get out of here without being slaughtered by more of Eve’s ‘things.’ The only thing we could do now is trust in her.”

2B was clearly hesitant, but decided that in a sense, he was right. They were in uncharted territory and she was blind, not a great combination. To add to the salt to the injury, their Pods weren’t able to properly map the city, as the surrounding technology was behind by thousands of years, making compatibility unlikely.

“Either way, we are getting out of this city.”

VVVVVVV

The 2009 Ford F-150 XLT four-door truck was a colorful looking vehicle of choice. But Sarah ignored the sight of it and hopped into the driver’s seat. Putting the keys in, she started the ignition. Everyone else was in the truck while the new android, named A2, sat in the truck bed. The hobo, Harvey, sat next to Sarah in the passenger seat. The little girl, Maria, sat in between 2B and 9S, who stared at the child with excitement and curiosity.

“Does everyone have their seatbelt on?” the female Marine inquired. The hobo and the child have their seatbelt on while the two androids were being taught by Maria on how to buckle-up. It looked adorable to Sarah, honestly. She looked at the deserted street as she said to herself, “Here goes nothing. Escape or bust.”

She shifted to Drive and accelerated the truck away from the house while keeping an eye out for an ambush.

San Francisco, California

On the Southern Freeway of Interstate 280

Destination: Oakland

11:55 AM

It was beginning to unnerve the female Marine. Nothing has attacked them so far, but that didn’t mean that nothing was watching them from a distance. And based on the radio signals from outside of San Francisco, the machines had already broken out of the city and spread across the State. It was likely that they will leave California and spread throughout the country. They knew that they needed to find a safer place to hide and regroup themselves, hoping to find something better in the (most likely) empty city of Oakland. But just as the truck got off of I-280 and into 6th Street…

VRRRrrrrmmmm…

“What the hell? Again?” Sarah tried to start the truck up again, but like what happened in LA, it wouldn’t start. She looked at her watch. It was now 12:00 PM and the heat was unbearable.

“Damn it,” She muttered to herself; she gave the outside one last glance before looking at her passengers and said, “Looks like we’re walking.”

VVVVVVVVV

On I-80, 3 miles to the Bay Bridge

12:56 PM

Sarah got lucky that the Pods found another working car on the highway. It was a much older model, a rusting 1966 Volkswagen Type 2 microbus. It took a while to start, but it worked like a charm. The group hopped in to the vehicle. When they got close to the Bay Bridge, however, the ambush that she dreaded for finally came.

“RPG! Get down!”

BOOM!

Sarah blacked out for a few moments before coming to beside a whimpering child leaning on a green sedan. She looked at her watch. 1:25 PM, it said. Her M4A1 was still on her so she grabbed it, cocked it and peeked through the windows to see where the attacker came from. But she never had the chance to shoot at an incoming streak of red and black. It grabbed her by the neck and strangled her. She tried to pry the hands off, to no avail.

She blacked out again and later woke up on the Bay Bridge. She was being carried by a female figure wearing a red hoodie. A2 had saved her, as well as Harvey and Maria. 9S and 2B were not too far behind, but were keeping their distance from the sword-wielding android. Harvey carried her M4A1 in his hands, clearly having had experience in using a gun. It took a while for Sarah to realize that everyone was running. She looked back to what they were running from and wished she hadn’t. It was an army of her dead comrades, reanimated by machine parts, charging towards them with the intent to kill. The last thing she heard was an explosion that happened close to the Marine before her sight faded to black.

VVVVVVVV

February 21, 2013

Omaha, Nebraska

Methodist Hospital

7:35 AM

Sarah woke up once more and opened her eyes. Only to realize that the blackness she was seeing indicated that she was blind. She concluded that she might also be deaf, considering how abnormally silent the world around her seemed to be. She initially freaked out from the fact that she couldn’t feel her body, but eventually calmed down

_ Hello, can you hear me? _

She mentally jumped from the out-of-nowhere words that just appeared in front of her… Wait, what?

_ Oh, I forgot your settings! H-Hold on a minute, I’ll turn on your sight first. _

The words disappeared in with a flash of light and colors and she could finally see where she was. Sarah was left feeling afraid when she realized that her vision was grainy, like an old television set. Then it cleared away to reveal the setting of a hospital room. In front of her was the shy, but relieved, Scanner. 9S was still dressed in the same clothes as before. She saw his mouth move before subtitles appeared in front of her. She was still deaf.

_ Do you remember who you are ma’am? When and where you were born? What you are? Do you remember your job? _

She couldn’t hear her own voice, but she could feel her lips saying “My name is Sarah Nolan. I was born on June 9, 1990. I was born and raised in Missoula, Montana. I am a Marine of the United States of America. As for what I am—”

She hesitated before finishing, “—I have no idea if I’m even human anymore, considering my eyes.”

“Glad to be back, ma’am?” The sounds were back. It seemed that he turned on the volume.

“You have no idea,” she replied with a smile of her. Then she remembered something. “What happened to me?”

The smile on 9S fell as a somber expression took its place.

“Back in California, on the Bay Bridge,” he began, “one of them shot out what you called a ‘rocket-propelled grenade.’ It exploded right next to you and…A2. She made it through with only a broken, but repairable, arm. You on the other hand…”

He stopped stiffly for a moment, as if to hold back a sob. A tear ran down his face through his visor regardless, but he sucked in some air and continued with what he was saying. He managed to keep his voice steady, despite the signs that he was about to cry from recalling horrifying memories.

“Most of your body is gone. All that’s left are some of your vital organs, half of your arm and your head.”

Maybe it was the drugs, but Sarah didn’t immediately react to the revelation about the fact that she’s literally at Death’s Door. When she did, she uttered only one word, “Oh.” She felt like the world was crushing her. She thought that she would drown in this feeling that she had never felt since running away from home to live with her Grandma in Clinton, Montana. That feeling when she felt unwanted in her parents’ home.

_Is there any hope for me at all?_ Sarah thought as she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep with tears falling from her eyes.


End file.
